The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Various industrial processes employ high-temperature processing. Most often these processes burn fuels, such as non-renewable fossil-fuels, to achieve the requisite high processing temperatures. Such processes include power plants, metal manufacturers (e.g., aluminum, iron, and steel), glass manufacturers, and cement manufacturers, among others. However, such processes often have low recovery efficiencies and high heat losses. For example, it has been estimated that various high temperature energy intensive processes that employ combustion sources for heat, such as steel, glass, aluminum, and the like, use about 12 quads of energy (1 quad=1015 BTUs or 1.05 Exajoules). Further, it is estimated that only 40% of this energy is used and 60% is lost. While various types of heat-recovery equipment are used in conjunction with exhaust and effluent streams, such as various heat exchange technologies, in practice, this equipment often has low efficiency, hence significant heat losses, as well as potentially large capital, operating, and maintenance costs. Thus, it is desirable to develop new technology that improves energy efficiency by economically capturing a greater portion of the waste heat from various industrial processes to increase operating efficiency, reduce non-renewable resource consumption, reduce pollution, and to enhance operation of the underlying process.
Further areas of applicability will become apparent from the description provided herein. It should be understood that the description and specific examples are intended for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure.